We were approaching the entrance gate when their house started to emerge from behind the trees. I was stunned. It looks like a modern castle adapted to the needs of the pack. It has at least ten floors and is very spacious. It has glass in many places, towers and a rectangular patio at the top. The facade is red brick and in some places it is shrouded in ivy, which gives everything a mysterious feel. Once I'd looked at it enough, I turned toward Dan to find out a few things before I entered the lion's den.
- You're the only person who can answer the questions that have been nagging me at the moment, so get mentally prepared. - He giggled, so I cut to the chase: - What is the name of this pack? What is the hierarchy? And do you...
- Wait. I'll tell you everything, and at the end if there's anything else you want to know, you can ask then. - I muttered a quiet okay and the brunet started with the basic information. - Moonlight Pack. One of the most powerful clans, if not the strongest. Em's brother, Adrian, had recently taken over the reigns. Their parents decided it was high time for him to take charge of the pack. Their grandparents, Cecil's parents John and Nadia, live nearby. Moving on to the hierarchy: Adrian is the alpha, Em, Aron, Matilda and Matthew are the betas, with the latter being the first beta, Adrian's friend and right hand. Alex, David, Karmen are gammas, and Kinga is a delta.

**********

Gammas are trained to take military positions and deltas are natural trackers. There is no omega position in any pack. The last ones were killed off in my pack in 838. After my escape from my own home, I found a ray of hope in the form of a sprouting friendship with Daniel. When he was young he belonged to my pack, but after his father died, his mother took him to the land where she came from. After an attack on our pack, I ended up in a cell. After being in that nasty little room for a month, I managed to escape, I don't know how I did it, but I did. I ran towards the west because that was where the nearest border was. I finally crossed the border and that's when Dan found me half conscious leaning against a big oak tree. He brought me something to eat and drink and then sat by me. Two weeks later I was fairly back to normal and decided to move on. I knew I would never forget the dark-haired boy with chocolate eyes who helped me. But I couldn't stay there, because there was still a risk that they would find me and do to his pack what they did to mine.
When it began to dawn and the boy was deep in sleep, I set off. I had no complete idea where I was going, but I knew one thing: I had to go as far away from there as possible. After several months of walking, I found myself in what was then Mongolian territory. I stayed in a small village and tried to stay out of sight. After about a year, people dressed in black with masked faces entered the village. They began to slaughter people without regard for age. After the relative peace I had experienced, I was once again caught in the eye of the cyclone. As I resigned myself to my fate and inevitable death, I waited to feel the blade at my throat, but nothing like that happened. Instead, they took me and two young boys with them. I didn't have the faintest idea why only the three of us weren't exterminated. I also didn't know whether to rejoice or cry. Upon arriving at their headquarters, I was greeted by the person who was in charge of everyone - Togor, a werewolf outlaw. Right at the entrance he told me that if I survived all the trials I would become one of them - a paid assassin. If I didn't pass, I would either die by the test itself or face a slow death. I survived everything, but ended up at the very bottom of tartarus.

**********

Because I had not yet undergone my first transformation, they were driving me to the edge. Torture with silver to teach me to be silent, to make no sound. Daily injections of trace amounts of silver into my bloodstream to harden my circulatory and immune systems until my body finally became immune to the silver. I was the only person who succeeded. Through these experiences I learned to turn off my emotions, and because of the "treatments" the upper half of my body consists of 90% scars of various kinds.
I went through my first transformation alone. No one was willing to help, but I didn't want an audience, so maybe that's better. I didn't know what color my fur would be. I suspected it would be black, just like the rest of my family. My suspicion turned out to be correct. If anyone saw that color, I would be killed on the spot or hunted around the world. As the only surviving member of the royal family, I would become valuable possession no matter if I was alive or dead. It was the one and only time in my entire life that I took wolf form. The others knew by smell that I had undergone a transformation, but their urging of me to transform never came to fruition. After the transformation, they moved on to training with weapons, which I had never had any contact with before. Fighting was based on the principle: you either defend yourself or die. After a few years, I became the perfect candidate to be sent into the field for action. I traveled all over the world, killing and getting paid for every target I hit. After hundreds of years of living this way, I had collected a good amount of money and several properties scattered in different parts of the globe.

**********

I met Daniel in France in one thousand six hundred and fifty. I did not recognize him at first. His hair was brown from birth, and it was almost white then. After my escape in eight hundred and thirty-eight he became king. As it turned out he was born under the name: Halfdan the Black. He is one of the legendary kings of Norway from the Yngling dynasty. He conquered more kingdoms he also had a son with the beautiful Ragnhilde, named Harald. Unfortunately they both died and he was left alone in the world. It turned out that they died by conspiracy and not disease. The sons of one of his subordinates wanted to regain power over their land and they plotted everything. He killed two of them and banished the third with fatal injuries. About the year eight hundred and sixty he jumped under the ice on Lake Randsfjorden. He slowed his heart to such a degree that when they fished him out of the water he was pronounced dead. He had planned his death because at the age of forty he looked like a young man of twenty. His second son, whom he had with his second wife, took over and united most of the country. Daniel's family, with interrupted periods of reign lasted until the one thousand forty-seventh. He himself landed on the coast of what is now Greenland and experienced similar training to me.
When I saw him in Paris I turned on my emotions again. I turned them off when my love for Togor's son, Timpur, did not end in a happy ending. After meeting familiar eyes, I was flooded with such a wave of feelings that I didn't know how to deal with them. Daniel saw what was happening to me and helped me out, saving me from the fate I could have created for myself. He had experienced similar feelings himself at one time, but had no one to help him get out of it. From then on, we were inseparable until an accident that happened seventy years ago.
One day one of my former "companions," Jacob, found us and wanted to get rid of us because, as he put it, "we were taking all his work and he had to feed on scraps like a dog." He chased us into a small harbor. To save ourselves we jumped into an abyss. Fortunately, there was a river at the bottom. Unfortunately, the current was so strong that I did not manage to reach the shore. Dan tried to rescue me, but he was unsuccessful. I drifted through uninhabited areas of Texas until Karl found me. He fished me out of the water, and with his help, I created a new identity for myself and came to live with him. He's a werewolf, and he was in his late forties when we met. After a few years, I told him I was moving to see the rest of America. He hugged me and said that I would always be like a daughter to him despite the huge age difference between us. Every werewolf has an individual age where the numbers stop. He became my adoptive family because memories of the real one were so distant as to seem unreal. I communicate with him from time to time to let him know I am alive and he is also the source of all my identities and documents I need to function nowadays.
This time my encounter with Daniel ran on my fear that he was sent to exterminate me. However, it turned out that he had done what he should have done ages ago, gotten out of the private assassin business once and for all. I was only surprised that he was alive, because you don't leave places like this voluntarily. There are two ways to break free: death or running away after doing some unforgivable act and hoping that everyone will fear you to the point of leaving you in holy peace. My escape was to kill the heart of the entire institution, Togor and Timpur. Despite the sprouting feelings that arose against our will, I had to act. Sometimes we have to sacrifice something for something, and freedom always comes at the highest price. After that particular event, no one dared to even lay a finger on me. They knew they would end up like those two. The only thing that puzzles me is what Dan had to do to get out.

**********

I finished recalling the story of our lives and asked another question:
- Who called you? - he didn't answer me. He stopped the car and got out, so I followed his footsteps. We arrived at the front door, which at the moment were opened by Matilda who looked as if she had seen a ghost. I wasn't surprised. It's not every day you see your brother who was presumed dead. We walked in and I began to absorb the look of the inside of their house, which is even nicer inside. Maybe this isn't the best moment, but I can't help it. Everything is decorated in a color scheme of red and gold, which gives an electrifying impression. We took off our shoes in the vestibule and walked deeper into the house. A massive staircase appeared in front of us, which we bypassed on the right. We entered a hallway in which I could smell our friend. In addition to that, I could still smell the metallic scent of blood in the air. Damn, what had he gotten himself into? When we entered the room, the sight I found there exceeded all my expectations. Rafael was lying on the table with a huge, bleeding wound in the middle of his stomach and small cuts all around. The room turned out to be a large summer lounge. A lot of people were frantically running back and forth with different things in their hands to stop the bleeding as soon as possible. When they spotted us, they stopped as if we had grown two extra heads each. Without distracting myself with them, I ran over to Raf and grabbed his hand.
- God, Raf, what happened to you? - I looked at him with furrowed brows. His eyelids opened and he smiled with relief on his face at the sight of me. Everyone gasped loudly that he was alive and not in a coma. He wanted to say something, but the wound was causing him so much pain that he only groaned and choked spitting out blood.
- Can you do something? - I heard behind me. I turned around and realized that Daniel's question was directed directly at me. Everyone in the room looked at me with doubt and some more emotion, but I didn't pay too much attention.
- I can. There is one condition, everyone must leave. - With this sentence I started a storm. They started to whisper among themselves who am I to order them around. Fortunately I don't know anyone else apart from Daniel and Rafael, because Mathilda disappeared somewhere, so I sent each of them a venomous look. Do they care more about a "human" ordering them around or the survival of a member of their pack? Dan caught my stare and growled at everyone, causing them to finally move their asses and get out of here. I asked Daniel for some kind of good and sharp knife, which he pulled out of his right boot. I sent him a questioning look, but he only nodded at the wounded man. I don't think I want to know where he buried the rest of the daggers, though. I pulled off my shirt so as not to get it dirty with blood, then reached over Raf and cut my entire forearm in one smooth motion. It will heal quickly, but royal blood is healing, unfortunately the downside is that it only works on others. It doesn't work on me or my family. Among other things, that's why they died. Because of the blood. They were drained to the last drop. As the liquid fell onto his stomach and the regeneration process slowly began, I pulled out the object stuck in the wound. A silver arrowhead. He sucked in a harsh breath and screamed in pain at the top of his lungs. I cut my forearm once more for a continuous stream as my wound began to heal. After a moment, his breathing normalized. I wiped some blood off his abdomen and saw the healed tissue that now needed to heal at its own pace. I left it as it was, because his body will be able to handle it on its own. I got dressed and he slowly started to get up. He was visibly dizzy because he gripped the edge of the table more tightly. Dan came over with a wet towel for me to clean my hand, and then I wiped Rafael's stomach. When he became more awake his friends and family rushed into the room. They were surprised that he had recovered enough to stand up on his own.
- Raf are... No, something else. You don't show any sign of life for a few years, and then you show up barely alive. What the hell are you playin' at? - Daniel started when no one else dared to speak up. The blond man sighed and looked around at our faces. He grimaced and replied while lifting himself up:
- In a minute. Help me get to the couch, because I don't think I can walk that distance without falling over. - The brunet grabbed him by the arm and sat him down on the couch. Everyone started staring at him impatiently. - He's back. - he said so quietly that only Daniel and I could hear. I got up and moved towards the exit of the patio. I was about to cross the threshold when I raised my eyes slightly at the obstacle preventing me from leaving. I looked into the black eyes of the person standing centrally in front of me. I felt an overwhelming weakness and warm arms around my waist as I surrendered to the dots dancing before my eyes.